dream

From Middle English dreme, from Old English drēam (“joy, pleasure, gladness, delight, mirth, rejoicing, rapture, ecstasy, frenzy, music, musical instrument, harmony, melody, song, singing, jubilation, sound of music”), from Proto-Germanic *draumaz, from earlier *draugmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrowgʰ-mos, from *dʰrewgʰ- (“to deceive, injure, damage”). The sense of "dream", though not attested in Old English, may still have been present (compare Old Saxon drōm (“bustle, revelry, jubilation", also "dream”)), and was undoubtedly reinforced later in Middle English by Old Norse draumr (“dream”), from same Proto-Germanic root. Cognate with Scots dreme (“dream”), North Frisian drom (“dream”), West Frisian dream (“dream”), Low German Droom, Dutch droom (“dream”), German Traum (“dream”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål drøm, Norwegian Nynorsk draum, Swedish dröm (“dream”), Icelandic draumur (“dream”). Related also to Old English drēag (“spectre, apparition”), Dutch bedrog (“deception, deceit”), German Trug (“deception, illusion”).

• enPR: drēm, IPA^(key): /dɹiːm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɹim/, /dʒɹim/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -iːm

dream (plural dreams)

1. Imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden

     Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Lord Byron

     I had a dream which was not all a dream.

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter II, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the grotesquerie of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.

2. A hope or wish.
   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803:

     So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   • Martin Luther King

     I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!

   • 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in AV Club:

     Ralph Wiggum is generally employed as a bottomless fount of glorious non sequiturs, but in “I Love Lisa” he stands in for every oblivious chump who ever deluded himself into thinking that with persistence, determination, and a pure heart he can win the girl of his dreams.

3. A visionary scheme; a wild conceit; an idle fancy.

   a dream of bliss;  the dream of his youth

   • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

     There sober thought pursued the amusing theme, / Till Fancy coloured it and formed a dream.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Shairp

     It is not to them a mere dream, but a very real aim which they propose.

• (events experienced whilst asleep): sweven (archaic)
• (visionary scheme): vision

• nightmare

dream (third-person singular simple present dreams, present participle dreaming, simple past and past participle dreamed or dreamt)

1. (intransitive) To see imaginary events in one's mind while sleeping.
2. (intransitive) To hope, to wish.
3. (intransitive) To daydream.

   Stop dreaming and get back to work.

4. (transitive) To envision as an imaginary experience (usually when asleep).

   I dreamed a vivid dream last night.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Cowper

     And still they dream that they shall still succeed.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden

     At length in sleep their bodies they compose, / And dreamt the future fight, and early rose.

5. (intransitive) To consider the possibility (of).

   I wouldn't dream of snubbing you in public.

   • 1599-1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I scene 5, lines 167-8

     There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, page 035:

     But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶ […] The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window […], and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.

• "Dreamt" is less common than "dreamed" in both US and UK English in current usage, though somewhat more prevalent in the UK than in the US.

• bedream
• dream up
• dream on

dream (not comparable)

1. ideal; perfect
   • 2017 November 14, Phil McNulty, “England 0-0 Brazil”, in BBC News‎:

     England found chances a rarity, although Liverpool striker Solanke almost made it a dream debut in the closing seconds, only to miscontrol at the far post.

• dream in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• dream in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• -derma, Mader, ad rem, armed, dearm, derma, derma-, m'dear, medar, ramed

From Middle Irish dremm (“crowd, throng”).

• (Munster) IPA^(key): /dˠɾˠaumˠ/[1], /dˠɾˠoumˠ/[2] (as if spelled dram)
• (Connacht) IPA^(key): /dʲɾʲɑːmˠ/[3], /dʲɾʲamˠ/[4]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /dʲɾʲamˠ/[5]

dream m (genitive singular dreama, nominative plural dreamanna)

1. crowd, group of people, party (group of people traveling or attending an event together, or participating in the same activity)
   • 1929, Tomás Ó Criomhthain, An tOileánach, chapter 4 “Scolaidheacht agus Fánaidheacht”, p. 48:

     Thug sé scilling do’n té ab’ fhearr is gach rang agus ar shíneadh na scillinge ’nár rang-ne ní h-aenne de’n dream mór do fuair í ach me féin.

     He gave a shilling to the best one in each class, and when he was giving out shillings in our class, there wasn't one in that big group who got one but me myself.

• C. Marstrander, E. G. Quin et al., editors (1913–76), “drem(m)”, in Dictionary of the Irish Language: Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, ISBN 9780901714299
• “dream” in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, Irish Texts Society, 1st ed., 1904, by Patrick S. Dinneen, page 260.
• "dream" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.

• drīm, drēm, *drīem

From Proto-Germanic *draumaz, whence also Old Frisian drām, Old Saxon drōm (“joy, music, dream”), Old High German troum, Old Norse draumr.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdræːɑ̯m/

drēam m (nominative plural drēamas)

1. joy, pleasure, ecstasy

   Ðær biþ drincendra dream se micla.

   There is the great joy of drinkers.

2. music, song

   Iohannes gehyrde swylce bymena dream.

   John heard, as it were, the sound of trumpets.

• Middle English: dræm, drem, dreme, dreem
  • English: dream
  • Scots: dreme

From Old Frisian drām, from Proto-Germanic *draumaz.

• IPA^(key): /drɪə̯m/

dream c (plural dreamen, diminutive dreamke)

1. dream, vision in one's sleep
   • 2008, Greet Andringa, Libben reach, Friese Pers Boekerij, page 70.

     Hy koe net sliepe, want de dreamen oer syn deade maten wiene noch slimmer as wat er mei de eagen iepen seach.

     He couldn't sleep, because the dreams about his dead companions were even worse than what he saw with his eyes open.

2. daydream
3. desire, what one wishes
4. delusion

• “dream”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011